He urged no more, but went away dejectedly.
The cottage to which Iona went was a tiny one with a plot of herbs in front of it and a huge fig-tree. It contained but one room, across which was slung a wide hammock. She opened the door, prepared her hammock and got into it, dressed as she was. There was a floating wick in a vase of oil and water that gave just light enough to faintly define the objects in the room and show a small fragment of paper on the floor. As she lay, glancing restlessly about, her eyes returned again and again to this paper, and finally with a sense of annoyance. She was naturally orderly and neat to a fault even; and now it seemed as if all her characteristics had become either numbed or fantastic. That scrap of paper grew to be of such importance to her that she could not rest while it lay there; and having risen to pick it up, it was still of so much importance to her that she could not set fire to it in the little night-lamp without looking to see what it was. It was a fragment of an old pamphlet in which had been an article on mediæval customs. The few lines remaining referred to a custom in the isle of Guernsey.
It related that if a sale of property were being made by heirs, one heir objecting, this non-consenting one could stop the sale by crying out: “A l’aide, mon prince! On me fait tort!”
She read, then burned the paper. It was an interesting fact. She thought it over, going to lie in her hammock again; and thinking of it, dropped asleep.
There were a few hours of repose. Then she waked and could sleep no more. The little lamp had burned out, and the dark dewy night looked in at her open window. She rose and went out.
The fig-tree before her door grew a single straight trunk to a height of four feet, or a little more, then divided into two great branches, hollowed out and widespreading. Iona leaned into this hollow, hanging with all her weight, and looked over the town.
“A l’aide, mon prince! On me fait tort!” she murmured, recollecting the words that she had slept repeating. And she stretched her hands out toward Dylar’s dwelling-place.
“They think that she alone has power to charm you!” she went on. “Blind that they are! And are you also blind? They see me preside with dignity, and they think that I am nothing but stately. Cannot you understand that I am as full of laughter as a brook? I have come up here alone many a time and talked with the birds, the plants, and the wind. I came to give vent to the life that was bubbling in me. If I had but shown it! If I had but shown it! The greatest force I ever put upon myself was to be cool and calm with you. It was honor made me. I thought you were resolved to lead the angelic life, and I would not by a smile, or a glance, or a wile make it harder for you. How could I imagine that you would surrender yourself unsought to a lesser woman! Oh, I could have charmed you! Cannot I call you now? Shall I submit without a struggle?”
Iona knew in herself a compelling power of will, without defining it. It had sometimes seemed to her that when roused by some vivid interest, her will had flung out an invisible lasso that bound whomsoever she would; not so much, indeed, here in San Salvador as out in the world, where minds were less firmly anchored. Yet even here, finding one in a receptive mood, she had more than once made him swerve as she had wished.
Could she not in this hour of supreme upheaval send her soul out—all her soul—through the space that divided her from Dylar, make it grow around him like a still moonrise, find him where he lay thinking, or dreaming, perhaps, of that fair-haired Tacita, reach into, shine into, his heart and blot that image out, gather all his will into the grasp of her strong life, and so melt and bend him that he should turn to her as a flower to the light? Dylar had a strong will. She had seen him as oak and iron. But, if she should slip in at unawares!